Hong Kong’s securities regulator reported a spike in the number of instances where the city’s financial firms are failing to comply with its anti-money laundering guidelines. The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), which stepped up scrutiny of laundering controls amid pressure to combat illicit fund flows, said its inspections found 223 rule-breaches during the year […]

Agricultural Bank of China Ltd will pay a $215 million penalty for violating New York state’s anti-money laundering law, the state’s financial regulator said on Friday. Bank officials engaged in “intentional wrongdoing,” including masking possibly suspicious transactions at its New York branch. Some transactions involved parties which are subject to U.S. sanctions, the New York State […]

Following an extensive consultation in 2015 on changes to the Licence conditions and codes of practice [LCCP] in relation to the prevention of crimes associated with gambling, and two short consultations in June 2016 on digital adverts and money laundering risks, the Gambling Commission has issued: a publication detailing further amendments to the LCCP (available here), […]

Seychelles’ officials have seized $456,000 worth of ill-gotten assets from drug trafficking, the first such seizure since the National Drug Enforcement Agency (NDEA) extended its mandate to include such an authority late last year. The accused, 32-year old Hubert Alphonse from Pointe Larue, a district in the east of Mahe, Seychelles’ main island, was charged […]

IMF staff regularly produces papers proposing new IMF policies, exploring options for reform, or reviewing existing IMF policies and operations. The following documents have been released and are included in this package: The Staff Report on the Review of the Fund’s Strategy on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism, was prepared by IMF […]

The Egmont Group — Financial Intelligence Units from 151 jurisdictions, with 19 other observer organizations — issued its latest Communiqué from its meeting in Monaco last week, targeting terrorist financing. Here’s the full text of the Egmont Group’s February 1, 2016 Communiqué: The increasing actions of terrorists and terrorist organizations such as ISIL, al-Qaida and […]

On January 19, FinCEN issued an advisory, FIN-2016-A001, to provide financial institutions with guidance on reviewing their obligations and risk-based approaches with respect to certain jurisdictions. According to the advisory, on October 23, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) updated two documents identifying the following: jurisdictions that are either subject to the FATF’s call to […]

Transparency International UK has published a report entitled “Don’t’ Look, Won’t Find Weaknesses in the Supervision of the UK’s Anti-Money Laundering Rules” which concludes that the UK’s anti-money laundering (AML) system requires a radical overhaul to prevent corrupt money from entering the UK. Overall, the report identifies that the current supervisory system is not fit […]